Wolds Workshop is behind the plans which promise educational outreach to help alleviate skills shortages in the heritage building sector
A specialist stonemasonry business has submitted plans for an educational heritage centre near the village of Full Sutton. Wolds Workshop, which provides lessons in glass painting, letter cutting in stone and wood carving, is hoping to build the facility at a site it owns off Hatskill Lane.
The conservation firm wants to make change to existing buildings at its White Hill workspace on the former RAF Full Sutton site. Plans submitted to the East Riding of Yorkshire Council also include the building of a new workshop.
An existing workshop at the site followed works in 2018, but activity stalled as a result of the pandemic with Wolds Workshop said to have consolidated its business operations to weather the economic slowdown. Refreshed plans created with York’s Studio Tamacoco Architects are intended to make better use of the existing buildings and to honour the site’s RAF heritage.
Within documents submitted to the council, Wolds Workshop said: “Lockdown restrictions and economic impacts of the pandemic provided an opportunity for Wolds Workshop to develop its research activities and its educational and training interests. This period of commercial disruption also brought about a renewed commitment to enhance and deliver the business’s environmental agenda.
“The heightened priority of delivering conservation skills training and environmental sustainability on the site is now further embedded within Wolds Workshop’s business model. As activities started to normalise after the pandemic it became evident that the proposals approved in the 2018 planning application would have to be revised for the company to deliver its services with maximum success.”
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In its proposals, Wolds Workshop says the new commercial workshop buildings would provide working areas for masons and carvers, along with apprentice masons and space for the storage of tools and materials. The heritage training centre, which could occupy the northern half of the compound, is intended to host lecture space, workshop practice rooms and welfare areas.
Within the documents, the firm suggests the heritage centre will be run as charitable organisation. And a small, existing building on the north boundary of the site will be developed into an office for managing the centre.
Wolds Workshop added: “Our workshop is committed to perpetuating heritage skills through the training of apprentices and our outreach programme. Improving the workshop development to better accommodate our specialist skills and increase the capacity for our outreach programmes will better support the heritage building sector, one that is under immense pressure, by allowing is to better respond to the sector needs.
“We are committed to developing ways in which the skills and learning environment we are providing could accommodate the wider community by engaging local interest, and building on our existing relationships with a number of local education facilities in the East Riding and York region.”